


Remembering You

by JellyLovesFaith



Category: The Politician (TV)
Genre: M/M, POV First Person, Stream of Consciousness, The Cure, They deserved better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-07 21:30:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20824112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JellyLovesFaith/pseuds/JellyLovesFaith
Summary: Remembering you hurts.But I still do. I still remember you. I can’t seem to stop.





	Remembering You

**Author's Note:**

> Payton and River belong to The Politician. I don't own any of these characters or anything by The Cure.

Remembering you is painful. Sometimes I wish I could just stop holding onto my memories of you like they are old pictures of happier times.

Sometimes, my memories of you are all that feels real. When I feel like I’m drowning, when everything just becomes too much, my memories of you are all that I feel.

When I feel numb, when everything and everybody feels like black-and-white background noise, you are the only one in vibrant technicolour and booming surround sound.

But most times, my memories of you hurt. Remembering you _hurts_. Devastatingly, achingly, somewhere deep within me.

But I still do. I still remember you. I can’t seem to stop.

Every so often, my mind goes back to memories of you.

And I remember once more. How your big, solid hands enclosed me with warmth and unwavering reassurance when I needed help in combating my demons.

How you used to stand quiet in my room, in the hallways, in our classes and just look at me with such tenderness, such awe.

How you slid your arms from my shoulders to my elbows, so slowly, so languidly, as if we had all the time in the world to just live in one single moment.

How you used to do that time after time when I needed you the most.

How mandarin never sounds as romantic, as alluring, as hauntingly beautiful as it did when you whispered it to me in my room.

How you kissed me like there was nothing in the world that you ever wanted more than to hold me close and have your heart be near mine.

I should hate you for taking away all those moments from us. Ensuring forever that we’ll never have any of them again.

I should hate you for doing it right in front of me, seconds after you said you loved me.

How could you do that?

How could you make me a witness to that?

Is that what people do to someone they love?

Make them watch them die?

I don’t know. All I know is that I miss you.

I miss you so deeply, so achingly in a part of me I never even knew existed.

No.

That’s not true.

I knew it existed. I just hated acknowledging its existence.

Because acknowledging it meant I had to come to terms with my feelings and well...what good has that done?

I’ve been reduced to a pathetic creature who yearns for a boy who loved me.

Past tense. Never to be present tense again. Ever.

You took that from me, right in front of me, made a decision for both of us, and for what?

_For what River? _

Why is that my consciousness takes your form? Am I projecting? Have I been so obsessed with you all this time because I’ve seen myself reflected in you? Have all my interactions with you been some sort of intense narcissism?

But how can that be? How can that be when we were alike in many ways but so very different in others?

I am raging flames, scorching fire, molten lava, destroying everything in my path, _burning _everything in my path so that no one, absolutely no one can survive to bring me down.

My ambition scares even my _mother_. I’m that frightening.

But you were always different.

You were the calm after a storm, the deep blue sea after a shipwreck, the mirage in dessert, the bright white moon on a dark cloudy night.

You were...you were the _good _in a world gone horribly wrong.

But now you are gone and some days, all I want to do is follow you into the dark so that I can see you one last time.

But you wouldn’t be there in that darkness, would you?

You were never one for the dark, no matter how much of it weighed you down.

It’s almost funny to think about it now. You were always so lost in the dark when it came to yourself, now that I think about it. You had no escape.

But to others, you were always the light in the darkness. No matter how much of the darkness consumed you, you still made sure that others only saw your light. Because you knew that that was what we all needed.

You were my light in the darkness.

So maybe that’s why I always see you. Unlike yours, my soul has always been dark. I suppose, then, it stands to reason that my soul will always need you. To shine a path when I’ve done my worst, when I’ve lost my way.

I just wish...I wish I could have the real you instead of the pale imitation in my mind that is only half you because it also half me.

I wish you were here. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not being there when you were still here.

You were in pain, and I didn’t notice.

Maybe there were so many countless times when you fell into my arms and cried for the death of your heart without me noticing.

Or perhaps I did, very deep down but refused to accept it.

Because if someone with such a beautiful, generous soul such as yours does not want to live here, what does that say about this world? What hope can the rest of us cling onto now in our darkness?

I keep thinking that maybe, just maybe, if I had been clearer with my feelings, with my thoughts, something could have changed. That the path you were on would have diverged into another. That the road you would have chosen would have been different and that that would have made all the difference.

But would it have made a difference? If I had thought of the right words to say, would it have made a difference?

Could I have held on to your heart?

Or were you always destined to do what you did?

You feel so deeply, all the pain in the world envelops you...perhaps nothing I could have said would have made any difference.

Even if I tried to turn back the time so that you wouldn't be drawn into that awful darkness, maybe you couldn't have been saved. Maybe you were too far gone. Too far gone before we even met. 

A sadness always ran through you. Maybe whatever I said wouldn't have been enough for you to break surface tension. Maybe you were in too deep, too sorrounded by the darkness you never let anyone see.

I still wish I found the words to say what I felt all this time though.

Before you finally found all your courage to let it all go, your last words in this life were that you loved me.

I should have said it back. I never did. And now I never can.

All I have are my memories of you.

And sometimes they are so real...they are all I can feel.

But other times (most times) they are not enough, and I just desperately want you.

I hope wherever you are, you are happy. I don’t like the idea of you somewhere between worlds, between lives, somewhere lost in the cold.

My delicate, beautiful, constant, deep River. I hope you’re happy.

I know you’re no longer tethered to this earth, no longer here, but you’ll always be with me.

My ambition, my dream, my presidency...they will all make me happy.

But _you_...what little I have of you, what little you have left me with (your memories, _our _memories) will make me feel _alive_.

You will live on in me.

Now I know that there is nothing in the world that I’ll ever want more than to feel you deep in my heart.

You’ve unlocked something in me that I cannot control and that means that I will always feel you.

And I’ll never stop remembering you.

~

_Remembering You_

_Standing quiet in the rain_

_As I ran to your heart to be near_

_And we kissed as the sky fell in_

_Holding you close_

_How I always held close in your fear_ _  
_

_Remembering you  
_

_Running soft through the night  
_

_You were bigger and brighter and wider than snow  
_

_And screamed at the make-believe  
_

_Screamed at the sky  
_

_And you finally found all your courage  
_

_To let it all go_

_~_

_There was nothing in the world_ _  
_

_That I ever wanted more  
_

_Than to feel you deep in my heart  
_

_There was nothing in the world  
_

_That I ever wanted more  
_

_Than to never feel the breaking apart  
_

_All my pictures of you_

~

Pictures of You, The Cure

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always welcome! I'd love to know your thoughts :) 
> 
> (And sorry for the not-so-subtle references to A Sadness Runs Through Him by The Hoosiers. It felt like such an appropriate song for River)


End file.
